Unbelievable! It had been years, I still would think about the project, but I didn't want to bother you. I honestly didn't think we would be getting another update on it. Very glad to see it!
Inspirational, thanks for sharing this journey. I would love to finish my other projects and figure out how to integrate a Pinion Gearbox to make a front wheal drive version.
I barely understand daily english... for me it's difficult understand what you describe but is so interesting. AI translator doesn't work so well. i like so much the way you work. Have a nice 2025 :-)
I like the ability to fold the wheels in for storage (although that will be less useful if you put a body on it) but concerned that the locking mechanism has weight and stress on it all the time and could fail while riding. How about having its “failure mode” of the lock cause it to unfold into riding position and the lock mechanism is only there to hold the wheels folded in a drooped position? That way you could fold both wheels just by lifting from the centre shock area and pressing the lock with your thumb or finger. I realise the wheels also need to be stopped from folding when airborne over a sleeping policeman or for maintenance etc but that wouldn’t need much strength to stop it happening.
One thing I was wondering as I was looking at the tilting/steering mechanism, how would it handle at speed over rough road? Would it be difficult to maintain control over cobblestone or washboard roads? In a similar vein, I was wondering if speed wobble, or an oscillation effect, may occur at high speed over uneven or unpaved roads. I think I remember the previous version had a locking tilt, probably for such occasions, but would a small amount of negative camber help with stability? Sorry, I don't have a background in mechanical engineering, these were just things I was musing as I watched the video.
In theory it should be no worse, and hopefully better, than a normal bike over cobbles, etc., but we will have to see what it’s like in practice. If either front wheel hits a bump, the frame of the trike will only rise by half the height of the bump. I will be fitting a tilt lock for use when stationary or at very slow speeds.
I noticed in your model that the front wheels are parallel front to back. When I was looking at literature on making ‘tadpole’ bikes it showed both of the front wheels being angled to point at the contact patch of the rear wheel, so that when you turn the inner front wheel has a greater (tighter) turn to reduce scrubbing on the wheels. We raced for school human powered vehicle in Australia and we always got good (even) wear out of the tyres.
Nice ❤ recenlty bought a Hurricane recumbant. yeup can confirm low cg difficult to balance 🤔 thinking stabilisers or trike conversion. it's too cold at mow so working on my 😂clunker. What cranks you running? Shorter maybe worth investigating, would give more toe clearance and can be more efficient, I'm 69 and went to 150mm huge difference no knee or back pain, didn't find the gearing worse either. Anyway loking forward to next update ❤
The crank length in the design is 175mm (same as my road bike) but I am intending to go shorter for the reasons you mention. Probably 155mm. Thanks for the comments!
Bonjour et bonne année depuis la France. Nice engineering. What is the main goal of this project ? Is it to create a design 'only', or to create a business and manufacture it ? Do you expect to earn money from making such machines in the future ?
The main aim is satisfying my curiosity as to the art of the possible and for the fun of designing and building a hopefully-useful machine. I don’t have any particular business plans as yet.
I like the new design as its quite an evolution, what will likly be a typical tilt when doing a sharp corner? (Will it provide a more leaning experience)
Happy new year! wow!!! amazing job!!! thank you ! the diagram on CAD is great help! can you build a simple prototype with 3D printed parts first? Remote controlled with E motor so we can see a small working prototype.
I think it would take as much effort to built a 3D model as to just make the real thing, and without an ‘intelligent’ rider to balance it, may be of limited value. You should be able to see the real thing soon enough!
Interesting that it's just bearings facilitating the tilting, no increasing resistance. I guess a foot/both feet on the ground are necessary for upright stability when not riding. Are there designs that have some sort of progressive resistance, or that lock up by themselves when not riding? If you need to scramble to stay upright at a traffic light, then the additional weight of a third wheel and tilt mechanism seem unnecessary compared to a two-wheel recumbent.
Not that I would have a clear idea for progressive resistance or locking up at stand still. Perhaps a variable thickness/width leaf spring could work for progressive resistance. But that's an additional part and additional weight. For locking up at stand still something might be worked out with the centrifugal automatic clutch of mopeds or whatever that's clutch is called. But I wouldn't know where and how to implement it. The relevant movement would be on one of the wheels/axles, but it should affect on the tilt mechanism. Hmmmm. It's probably a non-issue, but it would be great if you can finish my thought with your knowledge and creativity. 😜
I didn’t mention it in the video, but I will fit a tilt lock so you don’t need to put your feet down when stopped. Some designs do have a sprung tilt mechanism but I’m not convinced this is necessary. Whether the trike has any advantage over a bike is a reasonable question!
The geometry needs to be self-righting when in motion, like a bicycle. Otherwise it will remain a struggle for the rider to constantly keep it from falling over, like the last design.
It should be self righting to the extent that a normal bike is as the geometry is basically the same; the low centre of gravity reduces the self righting effect.
I'm wondering, are roll centers important on a tilting trike? Like in cars, they have a virtual point around which they roll from side to side while cornering. The distance between the roll centre and the centre of gravity creates an arm and its length determines cornering behaviour. I'm wondering if the same is happening with your trike and is making it harder to balance. With parallel and horizontal control arms I'm imagining the roll centers are infinitely high. But I'm by no means an expert on the topic. Cool project though! If it works out I might build one myself too
I think it’s a different problem for a tilting trike than for a non-tilting e.g. car, so I don’t think roll centre is important or relevant in this case unlike when designing a car’s suspension. I may be wrong though!
Two main reasons; if the wheels were under your knees, the rider would have to be a lot higher up to give clearance for the tilting mechanism; and you couldn’t easily put your feet down when stopped.
@@bentBuilder ah yes of course! Offset is about 20mm, it's a fairly normal car-type geometry so I hope it will be ok. It is driven by clearance between the wheel and the lower ball joint; smaller offset and/or steeper king pin angle causes a clash, without getting into dished wheels.
Unbelievable! It had been years, I still would think about the project, but I didn't want to bother you. I honestly didn't think we would be getting another update on it. Very glad to see it!
Wow, thank you!
@@LeesChannel sorry to keep you waiting, life gets in the way of hobbies some times!
@@MetalMachineShop I fully understand, I'm just glad the project is continuing!
This is just wonderful. So happy to see a new "improved/rethought" recumbent. Excellent, just excellent.😁
Thanks, it’s been fun designing it and getting the build underway.
Nice to see you have retaken the project! And nice to know from you again
BIg up for this comeback ... Waiting eagerly for the next steps.
cant wait to see the test ride, it's looking like a nice trike
Thanks for updates. Definitely keep watching
Happy new year, looks an interesting evolution of your design, and I'm looking forward to seeing the build
very cool looking forward to the build
Thank you for the update! Still super interesting project.
Thanks for sharing.In case you haven't seen it, Pedro Neves' cargo trike may lend some ideas to your steering setup.
Yes I have seen it, very nice it is.
Really enjoyed this thanks for taking the time
Glad you enjoyed it.
Very interesting. I'm looking forward to the next videos.👍
More to come!
Inspirational, thanks for sharing this journey. I would love to finish my other projects and figure out how to integrate a Pinion Gearbox to make a front wheal drive version.
It would be interesting to see if front wheel drive affects the performance and control. Those Pinion gearboxes are great.
I barely understand daily english... for me it's difficult understand what you describe but is so interesting. AI translator doesn't work so well.
i like so much the way you work. Have a nice 2025 :-)
What language are you translating into?
@@MetalMachineShop italian.
beautiful
I like the ability to fold the wheels in for storage (although that will be less useful if you put a body on it) but concerned that the locking mechanism has weight and stress on it all the time and could fail while riding. How about having its “failure mode” of the lock cause it to unfold into riding position and the lock mechanism is only there to hold the wheels folded in a drooped position? That way you could fold both wheels just by lifting from the centre shock area and pressing the lock with your thumb or finger.
I realise the wheels also need to be stopped from folding when airborne over a sleeping policeman or for maintenance etc but that wouldn’t need much strength to stop it happening.
Fair point, it might be better for the wheels to fold down rather than up, then it could still be wheeled about. I hadn’t thought of that!
One thing I was wondering as I was looking at the tilting/steering mechanism, how would it handle at speed over rough road? Would it be difficult to maintain control over cobblestone or washboard roads? In a similar vein, I was wondering if speed wobble, or an oscillation effect, may occur at high speed over uneven or unpaved roads.
I think I remember the previous version had a locking tilt, probably for such occasions, but would a small amount of negative camber help with stability?
Sorry, I don't have a background in mechanical engineering, these were just things I was musing as I watched the video.
In theory it should be no worse, and hopefully better, than a normal bike over cobbles, etc., but we will have to see what it’s like in practice. If either front wheel hits a bump, the frame of the trike will only rise by half the height of the bump. I will be fitting a tilt lock for use when stationary or at very slow speeds.
I noticed in your model that the front wheels are parallel front to back. When I was looking at literature on making ‘tadpole’ bikes it showed both of the front wheels being angled to point at the contact patch of the rear wheel, so that when you turn the inner front wheel has a greater (tighter) turn to reduce scrubbing on the wheels. We raced for school human powered vehicle in Australia and we always got good (even) wear out of the tyres.
I have used Ackerman steering geometry, but it may need tweaking slightly.
That's impressive!
Nice ❤ recenlty bought a Hurricane recumbant. yeup can confirm low cg difficult to balance 🤔 thinking stabilisers or trike conversion. it's too cold at mow so working on my 😂clunker. What cranks you running? Shorter maybe worth investigating, would give more toe clearance and can be more efficient, I'm 69 and went to 150mm huge difference no knee or back pain, didn't find the gearing worse either. Anyway loking forward to next update ❤
The crank length in the design is 175mm (same as my road bike) but I am intending to go shorter for the reasons you mention. Probably 155mm. Thanks for the comments!
Bonjour et bonne année depuis la France.
Nice engineering.
What is the main goal of this project ? Is it to create a design 'only', or to create a business and manufacture it ? Do you expect to earn money from making such machines in the future ?
The main aim is satisfying my curiosity as to the art of the possible and for the fun of designing and building a hopefully-useful machine. I don’t have any particular business plans as yet.
I like the new design as its quite an evolution, what will likly be a typical tilt when doing a sharp corner? (Will it provide a more leaning experience)
About 30 degrees would be a reasonable tilt angle, it will tilt a fair bit more than this but it may not be too safe to do so.
Happy new year! wow!!! amazing job!!! thank you ! the diagram on CAD is great help! can you build a simple prototype with 3D printed parts first? Remote controlled with E motor so we can see a small working prototype.
I think it would take as much effort to built a 3D model as to just make the real thing, and without an ‘intelligent’ rider to balance it, may be of limited value. You should be able to see the real thing soon enough!
@@MetalMachineShop sounds good! thank you !!!
Interesting that it's just bearings facilitating the tilting, no increasing resistance. I guess a foot/both feet on the ground are necessary for upright stability when not riding. Are there designs that have some sort of progressive resistance, or that lock up by themselves when not riding? If you need to scramble to stay upright at a traffic light, then the additional weight of a third wheel and tilt mechanism seem unnecessary compared to a two-wheel recumbent.
Not that I would have a clear idea for progressive resistance or locking up at stand still. Perhaps a variable thickness/width leaf spring could work for progressive resistance. But that's an additional part and additional weight. For locking up at stand still something might be worked out with the centrifugal automatic clutch of mopeds or whatever that's clutch is called. But I wouldn't know where and how to implement it. The relevant movement would be on one of the wheels/axles, but it should affect on the tilt mechanism. Hmmmm.
It's probably a non-issue, but it would be great if you can finish my thought with your knowledge and creativity. 😜
I didn’t mention it in the video, but I will fit a tilt lock so you don’t need to put your feet down when stopped. Some designs do have a sprung tilt mechanism but I’m not convinced this is necessary. Whether the trike has any advantage over a bike is a reasonable question!
add shock absorbers to the front end ? for stability
Some tilting designs have a spring return sort of arrangement, but I’m not convinced this is necessary. It certainly adds unwanted weight.
The geometry needs to be self-righting when in motion, like a bicycle. Otherwise it will remain a struggle for the rider to constantly keep it from falling over, like the last design.
It should be self righting to the extent that a normal bike is as the geometry is basically the same; the low centre of gravity reduces the self righting effect.
I'm wondering, are roll centers important on a tilting trike? Like in cars, they have a virtual point around which they roll from side to side while cornering. The distance between the roll centre and the centre of gravity creates an arm and its length determines cornering behaviour. I'm wondering if the same is happening with your trike and is making it harder to balance. With parallel and horizontal control arms I'm imagining the roll centers are infinitely high. But I'm by no means an expert on the topic. Cool project though! If it works out I might build one myself too
I think it’s a different problem for a tilting trike than for a non-tilting e.g. car, so I don’t think roll centre is important or relevant in this case unlike when designing a car’s suspension. I may be wrong though!
Is there a particular reason, to why the front wheels are in front of the pedals ?
Two main reasons; if the wheels were under your knees, the rider would have to be a lot higher up to give clearance for the tilting mechanism; and you couldn’t easily put your feet down when stopped.
oooooh 😯
Why is your KPI out so much? You're gonna get excessive tire wear
@@bentBuilder what's KPI?
@MetalMachineShop king pin inclination. If I remember correctly, you have an offset of 20mm
@@bentBuilder ah yes of course! Offset is about 20mm, it's a fairly normal car-type geometry so I hope it will be ok. It is driven by clearance between the wheel and the lower ball joint; smaller offset and/or steeper king pin angle causes a clash, without getting into dished wheels.